Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

Dory: [Reading a sign on a door] Hey, look. “Es-ca-pay”! Hey, it’s spelled just like escape.
- Dory the Blue Tang fish in the movie ‘Finding Nemo’ -

I always thought that Ford Motors should have used Dory’s mispronunciation of ‘Escape’ to promote their Ford Escape.  ‘Es-ca-pay’ sounds so much more daring than plain old ‘escape’.

When we were living in the Middle East, I drove a bright red Jeep Cherokee. One day a British women approached me (and my Jeep) and said, “Oh, I just love your Chur-o-key!” It took me a few seconds to realize that she was referring to my car. (Cherokee, to me, starts with a ‘chair’ sound, to her it starts with a ‘chur’ as in church sound.)
The lesson I learned from my years overseas is that there is more than one way to pronounce a great many words, and the sooner you accept that, the more fun language becomes.  I can ‘es-ca-pay in my chur-o-key’ – what words are you willing to liberate?

There is a hill behind the cabin and at the very top is a huge pasture. We often see horses up there, yet we never see them down in our valley. I don’t really understand why they don’t escape from their confines – the fence is down in many places.

I suppose, to the horses, the grass is simply not greener on the other side of the fence. They do not want to ‘es-ca-pay’!

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Other barbed wire photos: Macro Monday – Poked

Surprise in the Ditch

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Other Photos for this Challenge: Weekly Photo Challenge: Escape

Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

I don’t get it – how could I have ‘Come from a pattern’?

My mom was a sewer and a knitter. One of her earliest projects (after I was born) was a stuffed bunny that I called ‘Baboo’. The pattern in this photo is the one she used over mpffmp years ago. The bunny in this photo is ‘Babo 2′. Baboo1 was a much more interesting creature.  The first time Baboo1 was washed, one of his ears shrank much more than the other one did. For the rest of his life, his short ear stood up at attention, and his long ear flopped down over his eye.

When Baboo1 was about 20 years old, I carefully unstuffed him and gave him a good bath in preparation for his introduction to my first child. Once he was dry, I popped him and his stuffing into a paper bag and set him on a shelf in my mom’s laundry room. When I went to retrieve Baboo1, he was gone. Someone must have seen the old bag of grungy stuffing and threw it out, not realizing that Baboo1 was in there too.

I made a new Baboo, but he was never right. I used felt for his eyes, but I should have embroidered them. His ears were both the same length, and even when I stitched one down so it would flop, it just wasn’t the same.

Childhood has no necessary connection with age.
- Austin O-Malley, Keystones of Thought -

I’m glad I still have the pattern. I think I am old enough now to make Baboo again, only this time I will do all the right things wrong, and all the wrong things right. Baboo3 will be as imperfectly perfect as Baboo1!.

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One of my other craft projects – Sondra the Snow Goddess

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For more photos from this WordPress Challenge, go to Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

Any colour – so long as it’s black.
- Henry Ford -

I haven’t felt much like blogging for a few months now. Have I been Blue? Yes, some days. Other days, I’ve been seeing Red (but that is a post for another day). Very occasionally, I’m Mellow Yellow - (white wine can do that). For the past week or so I’ve been kind of Grey though – I’ve got a cold.

I perked up, however, when I saw the Photo Challenge this week was Color (or Colour). Just click on this Tag – Colour – and you will see just a few of the Colour themed posts I’ve done in the past few years.

So, what to choose for this theme?

In the creepy crawly department, I found a scorpion in the bathroom the other day, but in my hurry to remove it from the house, didn’t get a photo. I did, however, find this very handsome Large Milkweed Bug a few days later – well, actually I found lots of them and they were very absorbed with mating, so I had to wait for some time to take a picture that wouldn’t compromise their right to privacy.

A recent visit to Goldfield Ghost Town (see Two Subjects for a few words about this Arizona destination) offered many opportunities to photograph the bright yellow flowers, blue skies and Superstition Mountains, all while eating ice cream in a freshly baked waffle cone. Life just doesn’t get any better than that.

Another bug – a honey bee in a the bright pink flowers of – well something. Arizona plants and insects are still pretty much a mystery to me.

Things happen fast here in the Sonoran Desert. These Wolfberries are already a deep red orange in colour and I expect they will be a welcome food source for something very soon. I have read that the berries are people food too, but Arizona berries are pretty much a mystery to me too.

When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.
- Samuel Butler -

Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense

Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to.
- Ashley Brilliant -

I’m spending part of my winter in Cactus Country, and the past week has been pretty exciting. All sorts of interesting things are popping out the sides and tops of the cacti in these parts. I have no idea what the flowers will look like, nor how long it will take before they bloom. We’ve had quite a bit of rain though, so I’m hopeful that means a brilliant future for all the interesting plants that live in the desert.

One of the first out of the starting gate is this cactus – the Argentine Giant (Echinopsis candicans).

The plant itself isn’t all that wide or tall, but the flower buds were as long as my hand. Yesterday they were tightly closed.

Today- they were just about all open and the flowers were as big around as my cereal bowl!

Yes, they are fragrant and no, I have no idea how long the blooms will last.

I stood back and admired them for quite a while, and though both a butterfly and a hummingbird fed in nearby plants, neither of them paid any attention to these flowers. The bees didn’t either. Apparently the flowers are normally only open at night, which means that moths and bats would do the pollination.

For more photos from this part of the world, click on this story: A Visit to Never Never Land.

For more interpretations of this week’s photo challenge, click on this story: Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense.